My friend needs help. I know this isn't a medical forum, but I've grown to trust people in here to be bright, levelheaded, and able to take many different aspects of a problem into consideration.

That cannot be said about most of the doctors my friend has seen through the past year. He has eczema[1] basically everywhere, and whichever doctor he visits, it always ends with the same recommendation: corticosteroids.

And I must say, as much as I dislike them, they'd at least worked; unlike the phototherapy, the acupuncture, the Chinese medicine, the sugar-free, gluten-free and dairy-free diets, and all of the other stuff that you can find on google (last is some Japanese powder from rise that's supposed to rehydrate the skin from the inside).

I believe there must be some other way than just to immunosuppress the shit out of him: maybe he's omega-3 deficient (he's allergic to dairy and doesn't like fish), so he'd need some supplements. Or maybe he has too much Zinc? Or he needs a microbiome transplant (i.e. gut restart)? [2]

Long story short, I'd love to hear about some holistic approaches to treating eczema. Unfortunately, we couldn't yet find a professional who could provide it, so, here I am.

I'm not looking for a medical advice per se, just for some ideas, sources, or experiences that could help us.

Thanks a lot!

[1]: Looks like this: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/14417 [2]: Mildly NSFW: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal_microbiota_transplant